australia icomos asian cities cultural heritage & the interplay _gtwhs.pdf

7/23/2019 Australia ICOMOS Asian Cities Cultural Heritage & The Interplay _GTWHS.pdf

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6 Editorial TIM WINTER AND WILLIAM LOGAN

10 Contributors

16 Imagined pasts, imagined futures TRACY IRELAND

24 The Modern Capital of a Modern Nation: Heritage,identity and urban transformation in post-socialist VientianeCOLIN LONG

38 Imagining Yangon: Assembling heritage, national identityand modern futures

KECIA FONG

54 George Town: The discreet charm of rejuvenated heritageKHOO SALMA NASUTION

72 Sense of Place in Baghdad: Identification and belongingin a city besieged by conflictDIANE SIEBRANDT

76 The Role of Heritage in Asias Capitals: Hanoi, Vietnam WILLIAM LOGAN

80 From Colombo to Sri Jayewardenepura: National heritageand the capricious subjectivities of postcolonial capitals

ANOMA PIERIS

86 Scotland in Kolkata: Transnational heritage, cultural diplomacyand city image

AMY CLARKE

90 Shanghai City of multiple viewpoints ANNE WARR

94 Victorian Goldfields World Heritage Nomination:Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park

DAVID BANNEAR

98 Book Reviews

AUSTRALIA ICOMOS

HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT

VOLUME 26 NUMBER 3 - 2014

Contents

Asian Cities: Cultural heritage and the interplay

between nation building and internationalism

Cover photo: Downtown Yangon looking towards Sule Pagoda. (Source: Kecia Fong, 2013)


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ASIAN CITIES: CULTURAL HERITAGE AND THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN NATION BUILDING AND INTERNATIONALISM2

Asian Cities: Cultural heritage and theinterplay between nation building andinternationalism

Tim Winter and William Logan


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HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT |VOLUME 26 NUMBER 3 - 2014 3

It is over a decade since the volume TheDisappearing Asian City(Logan 2002) was published.

An edited volume bringing together a number of experts on the region, the book identified

the threats facing buildings, archaeological sites and the historic character of cities, as well as

the myriad of challenges of raising civic and regulatory awareness about the value of cultural

heritage in times of rapid transformation. It was a set of concerns and arguments that remain

as pertinent as ever. Those who have lived and worked in different parts of Asia over the past

decade on cultural heritage issues, frequently use the terms extraordinary or bewildering to

describe the scale and speed of transformation that has taken place. Indeed, for those concerned

about maintaining continuities between past and present whether they be social, spiritual or

material - the development of cities, the wholesale movements of communities in and out of

urban landscapes, together with the dramatic increase in industries like tourism, has often been

disorienting, and in some cases deeply confronting: both professionally and emotionally. And

yet, to focus on loss and destruction would miss a whole set of other fascinating, emergent

and important trends. As numerous publications in the intervening period have shown, cultural

heritage has become a topic of intense interest and debate in the majority of Asian societies,

for a host of reasons (Askew 2010; Broudehoux 2004; Pai 2013).

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about

to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his

mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one perceives the angel of history. His

face is towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one catastrophe,

which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel

would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a

storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that

the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future towhich his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm

is what we call progress.

(Benjamin 1940: 392-3)

Taken from Walter Benjamins musings on the rise of a European modernity, this 1940

description of Paul Klees paintingAngel of Historystrikingly captures many Asian contexts over

the past decade or so. Across much of the region, the second half of the twentieth century was

defined by major, and in some cases prolonged, social and political turmoil. For those countries

advancing out of periods of conflict and violence whether it be domestic or international or

struggling to forge culturally and politically cohesive societies after eras of colonial rule, the

storm of progress, a rush towards modernity, has often found its energy and its momentum bystaring back at the past and embracing histories that are contemplated for both their wreckage

and immutable grandeur. In such contexts, cultural heritage has been caught up in a series of

contradictory and paradoxical trends. As governments have sanctioned the demolition of entire


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neighbourhoods, even cities, they have simultaneously established new institutions designed

to promote heritage conservation and awareness. And as countries have gone into battle over

the authentic origins of textile designs or the ownership of archaeological sites, they have also

found new ways to cooperate and share mutual pasts through the language of heritage. Of

course, contradictory trends, missed opportunities, and reasons for despair and optimism have

defined heritage movements throughout the world in the last 150 years or so. In this respect

Asia is not unique. But as Winter and Daly (2012) suggest, it is the speed and scale of Asia that

sets it apart from many other regions and moments in history. Over a number of years since theearly 2000s, China, India, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam are among those that have seen

GDP growth rates hovering near or around the double-digit level. Equally, in other years, othercountries have been defined by economic stagnation and domestic unrest. This, coupled with

the scale and enormous diversity of Asia culturally, politically and historically also means it

would be nave to try and pin-point some key over-arching trends surrounding the regions

cultural heritage. Rather, publications such as this special issue of Historic Environment on

Asian Citiescan only seek to provide indicative examples, and qualitatively rich insights into

various situations and contexts.

Accordingly, the issue opens with an explication of how the language and values of heritage

have shifted over the last decade or so in the small, landlocked country of Laos. Colin Long

tracks the fading of socialism with national day commemorations, and the coterminous riseof Royalist iconography. Crucially, far from being an isolated phenomenon, this shift reflects

broader current trends across Laos capital, Vientiane, and the development of its built

environment and urban spaces. For Long, the quiet abandonment of socialism has created a

new dynamic of urban development, one oriented by various new influences, including private,

family and international investment. One important trend is the influx of regional investment,

with Chinese and Vietnamese funds driving significant parts of the citys infrastructure, including

its museums and cultural institutions.

Transformation is a theme that also underpins the paper by Kecia Fong on Mandalay, Bagan

and Yangon, three sites that constitute much of the discussion around heritage conservation in

Myanmar today. After decades of military rule, the country is undergoing a series of economic

and social reforms, such that cultural and civic identities are being actively remade. There hasbeen a spectacular level of international interest and inflow of capital in recent years, albeit in

geographically imbalanced ways. Yangon has been the recipient of the bulk of the attention.For this reason, after brief interludes into Mandalay and Bagan, Fongs analysis turns to the

complex geographies of knowledge that have formed around conserving one of Southeast

Asias most extensive and well-preserved colonial cities. This wave of international attention

has been accompanied by a complex domestic situation, wherein a nineteenth-century

cosmopolitan urban space has been enmeshed in a modern, post independence political

culture oriented by an inward looking homogenising nationalism. Historic representation is thus

left with tensions between accounting for histories of transnationalism or cultural pluralism and

state-civic anxieties over maintaining social cohesion.

Moving South to Malaysia, Khoo Salma Nasution addresses the familiar and perennial challengeof World Heritage-induced tourism pressures. Fascinatingly, Nasution identifies the problems

created by the transnational economies of birds, or, to be more precise, the by-products of

swiftlet nesting practices. In the urban precinct of Penangs George Town, swiftlet farming

has emerged as a lucrative business. Nests, made of bird saliva, are harvested in response to

rising demand for the birds-nest delicacy, which is now widely consumed for its perceived

health benefits across Southeast Asia and China. Whilst swifts naturally roost in caves and

houses, farmers have enticed birds to roost in human habitats. In Georgetown the scale of this

practice has grown rapidly in recent years, such that entire streets and neighbourhoods have

been colonised by tens of thousands of birds. Not surprisingly, pollution and environmental

degradation has followed. Whilst the public health contradictions associated with this industry

are intriguing in themselves, Nasution highlights the problems this is causing for those heritagebuildings that lie within the zoned regions of the world heritage site. From there the paper

considers the challenges of tourism induced development and encroachment which have

emerged since World Heritage listing more broadly.


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Moving closer to the western frontiers of Asia, we turn to the issues facing Baghdad, Iraq.

Diane Siebrandt takes up the issues of identity, belonging and attachment in a city ravaged by

war and violence. Her paper opens with a reminder of the cultural and historical significance of

Baghdad: a cultural capital of the world in Siebrandts terms. As she notes, the city continued

to prosper well into the 1980s, and the Baath Party continued to support traditional arts

under the guise of Arab nationalism. In the wake of repeated violence, the citys character was

profoundly changed with concrete barriers and armed checkpoints becoming commonplace.

And yet Siebrandt traces the persistence of tradition and cultural practice; processes that form aresilience of attachment to place and identity for residents living through horrific circumstances.

It is a story that weaves together poetry with gardens, festivals with refurbished public spaces.

In the article by William Logan the theme is the links between image making, nation building and

the appropriation of Hanoi in such processes. Drawing on his repeated visits to the city, Logan

tracks a number of factors shaping the emergence of heritage related discourses and initiatives

since the 1990s. The interplay between nationalism and internationalism is once again pivotal

here. Tourism, inflows of foreign capital and the 1000th anniversary of the citys founding

are identified as among the factors behind world heritage nomination and the remaking of

the citys historic quarters. In offering a critical reading of such events, Logan suggests the

domestic pressures behind World Heritage listing are indicative of the wider politicisation of

World Heritage and its mechanisms for providing oversight of properties on the list.

Turning to Sri Lanka, Anoma Pieris examines tensions over cultural heritage vis vis shifting

national aspirations. Accordingly, she examines the capital cities of Colombo and Sri

Jayewardenepura and the entanglements of heritage during a 26 year civil war. As Pieris

indicates, in 1978 the government of Sri Lanka moved its administrative capital from Colombo

to the suburb of Kotte, located just a few kilometres away and the site of the pre-colonial city of

Jayavaddanapura (city of victory). Colombo, the capital of successive European colonisers was

recast as the countrys commercial capital. It is a story of competing inscriptions of national

meaning, one that has revolved around class, caste and religious differences. Self-rule and

political turmoil form the wider backdrop of an account that focuses on themes of dereliction

and revival and the eventual worlding of Colombo as an international city. It is within thesechallenging circumstances that Pieris considers the role of cultural heritage in nation building

and identity formation.

Taking up the theme of cultural diplomacy Amy Clarkes paper considers the case of Kolkata,

India. As the final resting place of an estimated 2,000 Scots, Kolkatas cemetery continues to

be of significant cultural and historical importance to Scotland today. The site has become the

focal point of a Protocol of Co-operation between the two countries, designed to facilitate

Scottish involvement in conservation projects. Cooperation, nationalism and global prestige

are all in play in Clarkes intriguing account of the project and the institutional relationships

that formed around it. Clarke pursues questions such as why Scotlands historic presence in

Kolkata is so important to modern-day Scotland, and what is driving the use of heritage as

a foundation for diplomatic ties. In considering the implications for the city itself she also

examines what these projects tell us about Kolkatas future as a destination for tourism, and the

likely implications it will have for the citys international image. Cognisant of the dynamics of

diplomacy and its tendency to uncritically celebrate uplifting stories, Clarke highlights the gap

between good intentions, proclaimed aims and the lack of attention paid to project outcomes.

However, the paper neatly steers us away from concluding that the project was a failure by

highlighting the other political and diplomatic agendas at play in such a situation.

The issue closes with a number of book reviews and a short commentary by Anne Warr on

Shanghai. Warrs essay explores four key periods in the citys history that have contributed

to the character of Shanghai today: the Taiping Rebellion of 1853-1864, the Nanjing Decade

of 1927-1937, the Maoist Period of 1949-1976, and Post-Mao Capitalist-Communism era of1976 onwards. As Warr shows, each period was underpinned by a particular political ideology

concerning Chinas view of itself in the world; processes that are manifest in the citys built

space today.


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Finally here, we would like to acknowledge the considerable support Tracy Ireland and other

members of the organisational committee for the 2014 conference marking the Centenary of

Canberra. Without their time, efforts and generosity, this special issue would not have been

possible. As the following pages indicate, this issue represents the first of several outcomes of

the conference.

References

Askew, M. 2010, The Magic List of Global Status: UNESCO, World Heritage and the agendas

of state, in S. Labadi & C. Long (eds), Heritage and Globalisation, Routledge, London,

pp. 19-43.

Benjamin, W. 1940, On the Concept of History, Gesammelte Schriften I, 691-704.

SuhrkampVerlag. Frankfurt am Main, 1974. Translation: Harry Zohn (2003), from Walter

Benjamin,Selected Writings, Vol. 4: 1938-1940, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,

pp.392-3

Broudehoux, A.-M. 2004, The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing, Routledge, London.

Logan, W. (ed.) 2002, The Disappearing Asian City: Protecting Asias urban heritage in a

globalizing world, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong.

Pai, H.I. 2013, Heritage Management in Korea and Japan: The politics of antiquity and

identity, University of Washington Press, Seattle.

Winter, T. & Daly, P. 2012, Heritage in Asia: Converging forces, conflicting values, in P. Daly &

T. Winter Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia, Seattle: Routledge, Seattle, pp. 1-35.


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George Town: The discreet charmof rejuvenated heritage

Khoo Salma Nasution


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Abstract

UNESCO World Heritage listing is coveted as both an honour and a tourism brand. Theaccolade is something of a mixed blessing, however, as increased tourism creates an

environment in which heritage sites are changed to meet the demands of tourism. In

George Town, development both above and below the radar has had a detrimental

impact on the very heritage values which won the site World Heritage listing in the

first place. Development pressures have come in a variety of guises. Buildings have been

illegally converted into swiftlet farms or budget hotels. Though a Special Area Plan was

drawn up for the site, it remains ungazetted, so management of the site remains an issue.

Gentrification has pushed long-time residents out of the city centre, and this too has had

a detrimental impact on George Towns intangible heritage. Historic Urban Landscape

and other strategies need to be put in place to protect the heritage, both tangible and

intangible, that won George Town its World Heritage listing in the first place.

Introduction

For some countries and Malaysia is one of them UNESCO World Heritage listing is more

than a coveted honour, it is a tourism brand. Ironically, escalating tourism brings irreversible

change to the place as entrepreneurs adapt the place to tourists. While such changes might

have happened more gradually in the past, they are now accelerated by the phenomena of

budget travel and the general mobility of capital around Asia. Two Malaysian cities, George

Town and Melaka (Malacca), were jointly listed by UNESCO as the Historic Cities of the Straits

of Malacca in 2008. In George Town, Penang the movement towards nomination was initiated

in 1998 by a non-profit organisation, The Penang Heritage Trust, as a strategy to protect the

historic city centre. With the imminent repeal of rent control in the year 2000 (Khoo & Gwynn

1999), the Penang Heritage Trust managed to raise awareness by getting the listed George

Town inscribed on the World Monuments Watch list of the 100 Most Endangered Sites. The

idea of nomination to the World Heritage tentative list was taken up by the Penang State

Government and subsequently by Federal Government, which had earlier initiated this move

for Melaka on mainland Malaysia. The measures and mechanisms for heritage management

and protection are not fully established but are still evolving in response to the existing situation

and threats.

The Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca are listed for three Outstanding Universal Values

which correspond to Criteria ii, iii, and iv of the Operational Guidelines for the Implementationof the World Heritage Convention; namely, exhibiting the interchange of human values and

influences, providing exceptional testimony to cultural traditions and being an outstanding

example of townscape and architecture. The Outstanding Universal Values (OUVs) that need


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to be protected are demonstrated in the layered evidence of historical diversity, the living

community and their intangible heritage, and built heritage, particularly, the shophouse and

townhouse architecture. The outstanding degree of cultural diversity is a quality that infuses all

the three OUVs.

This paper mainly focuses on George Town, a port located in the north of the Straits of Malacca

and the eastern rim of the Indian Ocean. To provide a brief historical background, Penang Island

was part of the kingdom of Kedah, and became a trading post under the East India Company in1786. Its capital, George Town, very quickly became a cosmopolitan port town, home to many

migrant and diaspora communities. The colonial administration allowed religious liberties and

even legal pluralism before the imposition of English law after thirty years. People maintained

relationships with their home countries, so instead of migration think of circulatory patterns,

instead of cultural diffusion think cultural exchange. The municipal committee practiced a

growing degree of local democracy until George Town was declared a city by royal charter in

1957, the same year that Malaya gained independence.

Religious pluralism, exemplified by the Street of Harmony a street where mosque, church

and temple are located within a short walk of each other is a unique quality of both George

Town and Melaka, and this quality apparently caught the imagination of the World HeritageCommittee and gained its approval. However, heritage management in a multicultural social

context presents particular conceptual and communication challenges (Khoo 2012). Among

the various segments of Penangs citizenship, cultural differences in terms of the use of space

and relationship to the built environment might translate into different expectations and

aspirations for the continuity of built fabric and intangible heritage (Jenkins 2009).

The National Heritage Department implemented the National Heritage Act of 2005 and devotes

much of its resources to the protection of nationally listed heritage buildings. It also coordinates

heritage planning for both George Town and Melaka World Heritage Sites. The Penang State

Government, through the State Planning Committee, is responsible for planning policies and

has passed a State Heritage Bill in 2011 which has yet to be implemented. The state exerts

a direct influence on the local government, to the extent of dictating development policies,

densities and plot ratios. The local government, that is, the Municipal Council of Penang Island

(MPPP), has relatively little autonomy as municipal councillors are appointed by the state rather

than elected. Furthermore, the municipal councillors are largely selected from the ranks of

the state ruling party. The MPPP has set up an internal heritage department and has instated

a Technical Review Committee to provide heritage evaluation as part of the development

approval process. Since 2008, Penang has performed well economically despite its status as

an opposition state. Although there is a great degree of cooperation between the National

Heritage Department and the Penang authorities, statefederal politics has also sometimes

resulted in muddled interventions.

At the local level, there are several organisations promoting heritage protection and

revitalization. For a long time, the Penang Heritage Trust, established in 1986, was the only

civic-cultural heritage organisation, seeking to broaden the field of heritage conservation. The

Trust had an inclusive vision:

George Town, with its vibrant voluntary sector, has nurtured a heritage discourse in

which the people, the buildings, and the space they have created, are deemed to be

targets for conservation. (Cheng, Li & Ma 2014: 618-19)

The Trust was joined by other groups, notably, an arts education group with innovation

programmes. Since 2008, a number of other organisations have appeared. George Town

World Heritage Incorporated, set up by the Penang State Government as a non-statutory bodyfor managing, monitoring and promoting the World Hertiage Site, is now the lead organisation

interfacing between the local government and the various stakeholders. Think City, a federal

corporations subsidiary, administers the George Town Grants Programme.


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Above and below the radar

The initial threat to the integrity of the site came from a carry-over of earlier planning approvals.

In November 2008, five months after the UNESCO inscription, the World Heritage Centre was

alerted to four high-rise hotel development projects in George Town two within the core zone

and two in its buffer zone which would breach the 18m height limit stipulated in the heritage

guidelines. In April 2009, a joint World Heritage Centre-ICOMOS mission arrived in Penang with

a mandate to clarify the process that had led to the approval of the four projects in question,to assess their impact on the outstanding universal value of the site and to strengthen the

conservation and management system at the site. After intense consultation and negotiations

with the state and local governments, and the affected stakeholders, both developers in the

buffer zone agreed to the reduced building heights while the two developers in the core zone

agreed to comply with the height limit. All parties reached a compromise which was apparently

satisfactory to the UNESCO-ICOMOS joint commission. The state government promised to

tighten the approval process. (A. Ghafar Ahmad 2010)

It is worthwhile here to think of two types of threat

to the site. There are threats above the radar and

threats below the radar. The proposed four high-

rises were above the radar and caught the attentionof international heritage authorities. More commonly,

OUVs can be undermined by incremental changes,

which are below the radar. Likewise, Melaka may

be experiencing threats to the integrity of its heritage

site, but without a strong civil society to voice those

issues, their problems remain at least as far as

UNESCO is concerned largely below the radar.

A long battle was fought by the Penang Heritage

Trust (PHT) and other NGOs to have swiftlet farming

operations removed from the World Heritage Site

of George Town and Malacca. Swiftlet farming isthe term used to describe the business of harvesting

edible birds nest, made of bird saliva, for sale. The

industry can be highly lucrative due to rising demand

for this delicacy in China. Swifts naturally roost in

caves and have been known to roost in houses,

but swift farmers have artificially enticed swifts to

colonise human habitats, even entire streets and

townships, where the intensity of this activity is

producing conflicts in urban centres for reasons

of health, nuisance and other public concerns

arising from noise and swift faeces pollution, aswell as being detrimental to heritage buildings and

neighbourhood liveability. While UNESCO has stated

that swiftlet farming has to be removed from World

Heritage site, harvesting this Chinese delicacy is a

highly lucrative business that survives, indeed thrives

due to the existence of a legal grey area between

the jurisdictions of wildlife, veterinary science,

agriculture, local government and public health. Led

by a lawyer, the influential swift-farmers managed to

confuse the public, the government, and even BBC

and UNESCO officials, by appropriating progressivelanguage and claiming to be preserving heritage

buildings and misleading the public by claiming its

collection to be a traditional business, neglecting to

Figure 1:Artists impression of the original proposed

highrise hotel next to the historic Malayan Railway

building and clocktower along Weld Quay.(Source: Tan Yeow Wooi)

Figure 2:The hotel development in progress alongWeld Quay plans were resubmitted plans following the

UNESCO / ICOMOS Mission in April 2009 and its new

height reportedly conforms to the 18 metre height rule.

(Source: SN Khoo)


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mention that swift nests were originally collected

from caves not shophouses. International

heritage authorities have remained oblivious

and silent about the blight of urban swift

farming which is destroying heritage towns all

over Southeast Asia. In Malaysia, after much

lobbying guidelines were finally passed banning

this activity in urban areas but implementationis slow. The government placed a moratorium

on the industry as of December 2013, but six

months later, a researcher Creighton Connolly

(2014) reported 42 active swiftlet houses in the

core and buffer zones of the World Heritage

Site. He noted that this marked a significant

reduction in the number of swiftlet houses

that had existed during the last assessment in

2011, but was still not quite zero as the State

had announced.

The heritage guidelines for new development

which specifies 18m up to the eaves height

limit within the core zone, though reasonably

applied to the waterfront area, are too high

when built next to ordinary shophouses. The

quality of design is another major issue. A

conservation management plan for the World

Heritage Site, in the form of a Special Area

Plan provided under the Town and Country

Planning Act (Act 172), has been prepared

by a private consultant and accepted by the

state authority, but remains a draft until it isgazetted. The George Town WHS has a total

of 4,665 Category I and Category II buildings,

in both core and buffer zones, listed on the

heritage register. Of these, over 70 buildings

(mostly religious), are listed as Category 1,

which means they are of higher cultural

significance and thus merit a higher degree of

protection. The local government has set up a

Technical Review Panel to vet heritage-related

planning and building submissions. Members

from several professional bodies are appointedto the panel, but only a few possess proven

heritage expertise.

What Tourists Want

The use of heritage buildings to take advantage

of anticipated visitor demand has a visible impact

on the World Heritage Site. There are currently

122 licensed hotels and 168 unlicensed hotels

in the Penang Island municipality, most of the

unlicensed accommodation having sprung upin and around the World Heritage site in the

last three years. The majority of these involve

the conversion of shophouses or shophouse

Figure 3:New corner building on Bishop Street and King Street

in the Core Zone reportedly conforming to the 18 metre height

and design guidelines, but what is the aesthetic outcome?

(Source: Tan Yeow Wooi)

Figure 5:The former medical hall on China Street and PenangStreet restored and converted into a heritage inn, but an

attempt has been made to retain the memory of the former

medical hall and gains have been made in conservation and

sustainability. (Source: Renitang)

Figure 4:Four-storey modern infill along Beach Street with

eaves up to 18 metres disrupting the double-storey pitched roof

profile in the Buffer Zone. (Source: SN Khoo)


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ensembles, by heritage entrepreneurs who

think they know what tourists want.

The best hotel conversions bring some

conservation gains. For example, one old hotel

was restored using slaked lime and conducted

an archaeological dig on the grounds. Another

involved a conversion of a three-storey building

while retaining the original tenant, the oldest

Chinese medical hall in Southeast Asia, on

part of the premises. Old materials have been

optimally reused. While other hotel conversions

took the simple way out by replacing their

timber floors with concrete, the entrepreneurs

behind this heritage inn struggled throughdaunting bureaucracy to meet the fire

departments guidelines and retain its wooden

floors by using fire-retardant paint.

A few others, though tasteful and legally

done, may have introduced problematic

interpretations which ignore their cultural

significance in the makeover. Some choices may

indeed be deemed acceptable compromises

in the overall scheme of things. But these

renovations are then taken as a benchmark

and often inspire other conversions elsewhere

that may not be accompanied by conservation

gains, but instead compromise the authenticity

of the building and conveniently adopt

deceptive techniques to impress the visitor. In

such cases, the final results can be confusing,gaudy, even grotesque.

The majority of hotel conversions, however,

are illegal and destructive to original fabric

and architectural integrity. Drastic adaptations

and reinterpretations are often presented as

restorations, and one even won a tourismprize. Even heritage consultants have often

been fooled by the innovations as they are

not familiar with local typologies and cultural

specificities. Due to weak heritage management,

many inappropriate development approvalsstill slip through the heritage protection net.

Illegal renovations are carried on almost every

day. When issued a stop work order, builders

hurry up to finish the work, working around

the clock, on weekends and even on public

holidays. The tendency to strip the building

instead of preserving historical evidence and

the use of inappropriate materials modern

cement, modern paints, concrete floors to

replace wooden floors, easy-to-lay modern

tiles in place of terracotta tiles with traditionalprofiles are additional causes of concern. The

imperative of modern makeovers is a clean

new look at fastest speed and lowest costs.

Figure 6:New corner building on Bishop Street and King Street

in the Core Zone reportedly conforming to the 18 metre height

and design guidelines, but what is the aesthetic outcome?

(Source: Tan Yeow Wooi)

Figure 7:Four-storey modern infill along Beach Street with

eaves up to 18 metres disrupting the double-storey pitched roofprofile in the Buffer Zone. (Source: SN Khoo)

Figure 8:Former swiftlet house on Armenian Street converted

to budget hotel but with no back lane. (Source: SN Khoo)


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Governments love to encourage tourism and are loathe to impose restrictions on private

investors. Tourism can spur economic growth, give new lease of life to old buildings, provide

jobs and encourage cultural entrepreneurship. But for many local residents who do not profit

from tourism, the changes to the neighbourhood can have an alienating effect. In his book on

Venice, John Berendt (2005: 85) explained the local Venetians plight:

Soon masks were a favourite tourist icon. But with the appearance of each new mask

shop, there always seemed to be one fewer greengrocer, one fewer bakery, one fewer

butchers shop, to the consternation of Venetians, who found themselves having to

walk twice as far to buy a tomato or a loaf of bread. Mask shops became a detested

symbol of the citys capitulation to tourism at the expense of its liveability.

Of late, tourism has been further spurred as a result of a public art scheme which started with

wire sculptures illustrating street names and paintings by a Lithuanian artist. Encouraged by

queues of tourists who pose in front of street art and take selfies, street art has proliferated

around the George Town World Heritage Site and beyond. Although cultural revitalization has

attracted youth, cultural entrepreneurs and creative people, they may also have unintended

consequences. In a section of Armenian Street, where a street market has heightened tourism,

old businesses and residential tenants are moving out, as new activities may be incompatible

with the old. Residential tenants, already so difficult to retain in the inner city, are under evermore pressure from increased rentals, noise pollution and congestion, to move out.

In many Asian living cities which are listed as World Heritage sites, the prospects of a tourism

boom tends to trigger a hike in property prices, due to disparities between local land values and

the purchasing ability of the regional or global elite. The original owners tend to sell out at an

early stage to tourist industry investors and property speculators. New buyers, in order to make

their investments work, push out low-income residents and are eager to convert their heritage

properties into income-generating assets. This creates increased development pressure on the

World Heritage Site and speeds up social change at the street level. Penangites who have lived

overseas and come back annually have been amazed to see new hotels, cafes, restaurants

and souvenir shops have opened. They are taken in by the charm of new venues which have

been renovated to their taste. At first they arepleasantly surprised at the revitalization. Then

gradually they realise that the old familiar faces

and places are gone forever. The late great

Andr Alexanders study of historic cities in

Asia (2006: 4) warns of the potential impacts

of tourism in the age of mobile global capital.

A great deal of destruction of heritage is carried

on in the name of conservation, rejuvenation

and tourism development. The old city is

being rejuvenated and primed for affluent

suburbanites, domestic tourists and foreigntourists, who prefer to see and experience

gentrified heritage. Property speculation, over-

development, traffic congestion and inflation

are making Penang less liveable for the locals.

Rising rents, insecurity of tenure and outright

evictions continue to drive the old inhabitants

out of the historic centre.

A Hole in the Soul of the City?

We should be more concerned about the numbers of residents in the WHS than the numberof tourists visiting it. A census conducted in 2010 showed that the site has barely more than

10,000 inhabitants possibly the lowest figure in 200 years. The latest census taken this year

is expected to show a further decline.

Figure 9:The new cafe on Pitt Street (Jalan Masjid Kapitan

Keling) has replaced the local corner coffeeshop and rents have

been hiked up for the adjacent building threatening the artisans

who have been recognized as part of George Towns intangibleheritage. (Source: SN Khoo)


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In the last two years George Town World Heritage Incorporated has commissioned intangible

cultural heritage (ICH) surveys. The results of this cultural mapping last year shows residents

with artisan skills (840 cases), as well as residents with artistic and cultural skills (231 cases), and

residents as well as non-residents who are practicing traditional trades and occupations (1243

cases). The Intangible Cultural Heritage Domain of traditional trades and occupations is not

listed in UNESCOs 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritagebut

the Convention allows for local communities to develop their own definitions and they have

come up with an original definition for this domain.

In 2013, the mapping of traditional cultural-religious festivals found more than 200 cultural-

religious organisations, institutions and sites, related to the Chinese religion, Islam, Hinduism,

and Christianity. The majority of sites relate to the first group, Chinese religion, a fusion of

Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. Almost 200 of those sites have a combined total of more

than 500 major and minor festivals. This shows

that the WHS is extremely rich in intangible

cultural heritage, which is not kept in museums

and galleries but is practiced and constantly

renewed by the urban community as part of itsreligious-cultural life.

In Malaysia, cultural identity has political

dimensions. We are grateful that World

Heritage listing has conferred international

acknowledgement of the value of Penangs

cultural diversity, built heritage and social

history. It is a boom for the sites communities

that cultural identities can be affirmed and

places protected. However, it is obvious that

the fundamentals are not in place for long-

term heritage preservation. Economic returnsdo not necessarily translate into benefits to

the inhabitants of the site. The site may well

become relatively successful as a tourism

Figure 10:Tourists love to pose in front of picturesque heritagedecay, but due to increasing property prices and the decanting

of the inner city, the prewar Tye Association next door on

Stewart Lane has already moved out and put their building on

the market. (Source: SN Khoo)

Table 1:Transformation cycle in the Luang Prabang World Heritage Site. (Source: A. Alexander 2006, p.4)

Stage Features

DiscoveryVisitor number increases, local economy improves slowly, service industry

begins to form.

Take-off

Large increase in visitor numbers; local economy heats up, service

industry sees large investments by major local and international players

edging out small local players.

Maturity

Still slight increase in visitor number; tourism industry has edged out

many parts of the local economy, costs begin to set in (environmental,

social, infrastructure, rising local prices).

Decline

Visitor numbers decline but may remain stable on a much smaller level

if there is no major disaster, economy, social structures and place are

transformed, local culture replaced by sanitized culture for visitors,

traditional local jobs largely vanished, land prices too high for low-

income communities. New competing destinations are discovered that

are still unspoilt.


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destination but this success is largely by bigger local players and national or international

investors. The inner city inhabitants tend to be displaced or relegated to subordinate roles in

the service industry. But if they cease to maintain the urban traditions and intangible heritage,

then we would have lost the testimony of cultural traditions, the very soul of the city.

In several living cities which have received UNESCO listing, a major weakness of heritage

management and monitoring is the lack of understanding of intangible cultural heritage

values and the lack of any real built-in protection for this. As there were no prior inventories,

no current monitoring, and no specific guidelines for intangible heritage, there is nothing to

say when the rules have been broken, or when intangible heritage has been compromised,

diminished or even destroyed.

In George Town, many of the inhabitants are tenants rather than property owners. The

inhabitants are the living community who perpetuate the urban traditions, religious festivals

and hand down intangible cultural heritage from generation to generation; their role as

stakeholders should be recognised in tangible ways. Well-intentioned guidelines and incentives

to spur revitalization, as well as trendy place-making projects, may actually work against this

vulnerable group by encouraging renovations with results which are aesthetically pleasing to

the affluent, but incrementally undermine the sites integrity and authenticity. It is this discreet

charm of rejuvenated heritage targeted at the bourgeoisie cultural tourist that may maskserious problems with the site.

Rejuvenation from Within

UNESCO listing and the resultant tourism impacts have changed the character of the city in the

space of a few years. The city is now full of new hotels and eateries, mostly unlicensed, which

have nothing to do with George Towns Outstanding Universal Values, while destroying the very

things that made George Town special in the first place. Well, is there another way? Reforms

for affordable housing, taking care of liveability and equitable mobility for locals, plugging the

leaks in the local economy, long-term socio-cultural institution building for conservation and

continuing education, and other community strengthening processes may help protect the

OUVs, while minimising social fractures and displacements. They might even work to stimulaterejuvenation from within.

There is now a push for a Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach to be applied to historic

cities in Asia. It is desirable to test this approach in historic cities of cultural diversity, where

inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic differentiation further complicates power and wealth differentials.

Without substantial longer-term public funding, the George Town WHS will certainly have to

rely largely on private investment to restore its decaying fabric. The results could be much better

if there was political will to impose some restrictions and to guide and channel this investment

with a long-term view. The HUL approach talks about engagement with stakeholders, and can

take this idea further by emphasising community empowerment and civic processes and putting

in place a number of social indicators and feedback mechanisms from local heritage groups.

In concluding this paper, it is proposed that a Historic Urban Landscape approach should be

explored as a strategy to privilege the people who sustain the intangible heritage qualities of

the WHS. While change is inevitable, people-centred policies are needed to balance powerful

and predatory market forces. The imagined future is a place where citizens, or rather a collective

of citizens, can between them play the roles of caretakers and custodians of heritage sites,

practitioners and transmitters of urban traditions, keepers of knowledge and story-tellers to

the future generations. In return for these responsibilities, they should also have rights rights

to dignity and housing security, opportunity to prosper economically, culturally and spiritually,

and to be active participants in shaping the citys future. But to imagine the future of a World

Heritage city is also to imagine the meaning of its citizenship the credibility of World Heritage

status would certainly be in doubt if it means imminent displacement for the citys mostvulnerable citizens, turning their homes into the playground for tourists and the rich.


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HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT | VOLUME 26 NUMBER 3 2014 49

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